Chapter 5
Ororo waited by the old willow until almost two thirty. When Joey didn't come, she frowned, and then set off around the lake to find out what was happening with her little friend.
As she approached the greenhouse she heard the sound of sobbing. Startled and alarmed, she tapped on the door lightly. "Joey? Are you there?"
"Go away, please go away," Joey sobbed from inside the structure. "I don't want to see anyone right now, please…just…go away." Worried, Ororo took the key to the greenhouse from her pocket and slipped it into the lock. "Joey, I'm coming in."
Joey sat up quickly, wiping her eyes and tucking her bruised legs under her as she turned to face Ororo. "I'm not up to company, please, not today…"
Ororo stared down at the girl sitting on the floor. The greenhouse floor was always swept clean; probably to avoid getting her clothes dirty; but there were streaks of tears on Joey's cheeks, and dark shadows under her eyes. "You look awful, child," she said softly, crouching beside the child. "What is wrong?"
Joey dropped her eyes, fidgeted with the fingers laced tightly in her lap. "Nothing. I'm just not in the mood for company today."
"It is not nothing," Ororo said, tilting her head to try and see under Joey's long bangs. "You would not be crying if something weren't wrong." When that didn't produce results, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the slim shoulders.
And Joey dissolved into tears, sobbing as hard as Ororo had seen anyone cry. She brought her arms up to wrap around Ororo's neck and clung to the older woman, and Ororo held her and let her cry.
Finally, when the child stopped crying, Ororo wiped the small face with her gentle fingers and said, "I am getting cramped crouching here. Come, stand up." She started to pull Joey to her feet, but Joey resisted, and Ororo suddenly realized she was trying to hide something behind her back from the older woman. She swept the girl up off the floor in one smooth move, and turned her around. For a second she was puzzled; there was nothing there…but then her eyes roved lower, and she gasped audibly.
Joey twisted out of her grasp, hunching her shoulders and backing slowly away from Ororo. "Don't look, please don't look," the girl said, tears threatening to overflow her indigo eyes again. "It wasn't my fault, it really wasn't; she said I told lies and she hit me, but it wasn't a lie, I swear it wasn't; he did grab me and touch me, and I wasn't comfortable with it, I tried to tell him but he wouldn't let me go--"
Ororo stepped forward and swept the girl up in her arms. The ridges of the purple-black bruises felt hard against her skin, and Ororo bit her lip as she carried the girl out of the greenhouse and down the slope to the lake. Once out of sight of the house, she took to the air, taking the most direct route to the mansion. Once at the back door, she put Joey down long enough to open the door, then firmly escorted her inside.
Remy was at the table, this time with a paper bag from the local sub place sitting on the table in front of him, his feet propped up on the chair beside him. He sat up quickly as Ororo shut the door, then rose as he saw her grim face. "What wrong, chere?"
Ororo turned the girl around, and Remy's eyes widened as he saw the ugly long black bruises discoloring the back of those pale legs. With a muttered curse he got up out of his chair and ran out of the kitchen, heading no doubt for the lower levels to get Hank.
Ororo tried to get Joey to sit, but the hard wooden kitchen chairs caused the child to cry out. Ororo helped her stand, then knelt behind her and started to pull up the hem of the little sundress, to see the extent of the damage. Joey protested, sobbing, but Ororo spoke to her gently but firmly. "Joette. I will not hurt you, I wish to see how badly you are hurt and see if there is anything I can do to alleviate your pain." The girl put up another protest, then gave up and stood quietly as Ororo slid the dress up.
The livid bruises went all the way up the back of the child's legs. Ororo counted them with wide, disbelieving eyes. Ten. Ten four inch long, two inch wide welts marked the girl's legs from just above her heels to mid-thigh. She winced at the thought of how much pain the child had endured while receiving the beating. "Joette, what happened?"
"I was bad." Ororo heard the bitterness in the little girl's voice, and flinched.
When no other information was forthcoming, Ororo sighed. "Nothing you could have done would possibly have justified these bruises. Joette--" and her words trailed off as the kitchen door opened, and Remy came back in with Hank, Jean, and Charles in tow.
Jean and Charles both gasped. Hank pressed his lips into a thin, grim line, and sat down in the chair Remy had vacated. "I shall not hurt you any more than I have to," he said to her gently. "I have an ointment that will dull the pain from the welts for a time, but I will need to apply the ointment directly to the welts in order for it to take effect. The pain will pass quickly. Can you bear it?"
Joette nodded, screwing her eyes shut and reaching out to grasp the edge of the table. Ororo intercepted her hands with her own, and felt the girl grip her hand as Hank touched the welt at the top of her thigh. Joey gasped in pain, but otherwise made no further sign of discomfort.
"Hello, Joey." Jean spoke gently, walking around the table to see the girl's face. 'I am Jean. Ororo has told me a lot about you the last couple of days." Joey nodded, but said nothing. "Can you tell us what happened?"
Joey looked down at the floor. "I was bad. Mrs. Seward, my nanny, hit my legs with a yardstick. You don't really need to worry about the bruises, they'll go away in a couple of weeks. They did the last time."
"This is not the first time this has happened?" Jean said, keeping her voice low and soothing as she shot a glance at Charles.
"N-no," Joey admitted reluctantly. "The first time she did this was when I went into Papa's study to find a phone number I could call him with and I disturbed some papers. She asked me if I had done it, and I told her no, but I had paint on my fingers and she saw the paint spot on the desk. She disciplined me with the yardstick."
"What did you do this time to deserve this?"
Joey burst into tears. "Please, I don't want to talk about it, I'm hungry and I'm so tired, she didn't let me sleep last night, I'm sleepy, oh, Papa, where are you?" she moaned.
Jean crouched beside Joey, taking her hands from Ororo's and turning the girl to face her. "What do you mean by 'she didn't let you sleep', Joey?"
"Mrs. Seward," Joey gulped miserably. She hadn't meant to let that slip, but she was so tired…"I walked all over the house yesterday in muddy shoes, I forgot to wipe them when I came in, and she made me stay up half the night scrubbing the floors clean, and then I had to stand in the corner all night."
She's exhausted, Xavier said grimly. "Ororo, if you would, take her upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms and let her lie down for a while."
"No!" Joey twisted in Ororo's arms, panicked. "No, I can't, I'll get in trouble if I'm late getting back, and Mrs. Seward said I wasn't allowed to have naps today."
"You are not going home tonight," Xavier said. "I will not allow you to be abused like this…"
"No, no, it was my fault, I lied, I deserved it, please let me go!" Joey was terrified. What would Mrs. Seward say if she didn't come home? And how bad would the beating be when she finally did go home? She didn't want to think about it.
Xavier studied the child for a moment. She wasn't going to stay willingly, that much was certain. And he was not going to hold her here against her will. "Very well," he said quietly. "I would still like to see you get some sleep, though. You are exhausted. Ororo will show you upstairs for an hour's nap, and then you may go home. We will wake you when you need to leave."
"Promise?" Joey said warily.
Xavier nodded as Hank stepped back. "Lie on your stomach, so that the ointment does not rub off," he said. 'It needs about half an hour to soak into the skin, but by the time you are ready to leave, there should be no sign that any medicine was applied." Joey nodded as Ororo took her upstairs.
Her fatigue and the prospect of finally getting some sleep dulled her eagerness to see the rest of the house, but the faint impression she did get was that the house was huge. They went up a flight of stairs, then another flight, and then she opened a door and showed her up a short set of steps to an attic. Joey gasped in delight. There were plants everywhere, greenery tucked in corners all around the room, and flowering plants on the windowsill and hanging from the skylight. The bed was neatly made with a pale-blue comforter that had a lacy white pattern on it. Ororo pulled the covers down, but Joey hung back. "This is someone's bed."
"Mine," Ororo said tranquilly. "I have some things I need to do with my plants up here, and I will not make a lot of noise. But this way I can be nearby when I have to wake you." Joey said nothing else, but climbed into bed and stretched out on her stomach. Moments later, she was asleep.
Ororo created a miniature rain cloud over her plants and let a light mist fall on them as she sat down in a chair beside the bed and picked up a book. She couldn't concentrate on the words on the page, however, and after staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes she put the book down, letting her eyes fall instead on the little girl sleeping peacefully on her bed.
The welts, illuminated by the sunlight coming through the skylight, looked uglier than they had downstairs. Ororo gently pulled the skirt of the dress away from the girl's welted upper legs, allowing air to circulate and the ointment to soak into the skin. She reached out to touch one of the bruises, to see if the medication was being absorbed, and the girl stirred gently and moaned. Ororo quickly took her hand back, afraid she had woken the child up, but Joey just buried her face deeper in the pillow and continued to doze.
Ororo?
Yes, Charles? Ororo responded, stepping back from the bed.
Is she sleeping?
Ororo descended the attic steps and met Charles in the third floor hallway. "She is asleep. Fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow."
"She was exhausted," Xavier said, and Ororo heard sympathy for the child in his voice. "I wonder what she did to deserve this kind of treatment."
"She said…when I found her in her greenhouse this afternoon…that she had gotten her beating for lying. Something about someone having grabbed her, and touched her, and she wasn't comfortable with it. She told her nanny, I assume, but the woman didn't believe her, and she was beaten."
"I had seen a car traveling up toward her house. There was a man sitting in it. Would you ask her, when you get the chance, who it is?"
"You think…" Ororo didn't finish. Her mind jumped to the same conclusion. "How could anyone believe that a child would make up such a story?" she asked, bewildered.
"I don't know," Xavier said. "But we have no proof as yet. It may not be what we think. Unless she tells us, of course." He broke off as they heard footsteps on the attic stairs, and moments later Joey pulled open the attic door. "Did we wake you?"
Joey shook her head as she rubbed her eyes. "No, I just…I knew I couldn't stay long, so I just dozed, I didn't really sleep deeply."
Xavier checked his watch. "It's only a quarter after four. As you are now awake, perhaps you might also feel better if you came down and had something to eat." Joey nodded, and followed Ororo down to the kitchen.
She was finishing a huge roast beef sandwich when Xavier came into the kitchen. "Joey," he began without preamble, "I don't know what happened at your house. I do know you're not willing to share it with us, but please remember this; we're your friends. I have been your father's friend for a long time, and Ororo has developed quite a liking for her little garden helper. If you ever need help, of any kind, please don't hesitate to come here. I will never ask you to do anything you're not comfortable with, and I won't force you to tell us anything. If you don't feel like telling us what happened now, that's all right. I just want you to know that we're here, and we care about you, and we want to help you. Feel free to come to us, at any time, day or night. Do you understand?"
Joey looked at him with big eyes. "You won't mind?"
"Of course not," Ororo said, hugging the child impulsively. Joey hugged her back, then glanced at the clock. "Oh, my, I have to go. Thanks for the nap, Mr. Xavier. And the sandwich, Ororo. I'll see you tomorrow." And she was gone.